Sen. Harry Reid ready to go nuclear on executive branch nominations

Reid appears to have enough support among the Democratic Caucus to go forward. | AP Photo

Reid is also under tremendous pressure from big Democratic donors to employ the nuclear option — the issue has caught fire among the base and Reid has been quizzed repeatedly by supporters about when he’ll employ the nuclear option.

The issue also gives Democrats election-year fodder in portraying McConnell as defender of the status quo and an unpopular Senate.

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As Reid has been publicly mum about the matter for weeks, McConnell has gone to the Senate floor to lambast Reid for contemplating the rules change, saying the majority leader broke his word and is manufacturing a crisis that doesn’t exist. And he has slammed Democrats for trying to push through controversial NLRB nominees now at the center of a Supreme Court review over whether Obama exceeded his recess appointment authority.

“What I’m saying to President Obama and his friends on the far left is this: The facts show you’re getting treated pretty well on nominations as it is,” McConnell insisted on Tuesday.

Republicans have a variety of potential options in responding to Reid’s move. They can object to committee meetings and slow action on that front, or try to tie up progress on all legislation, including must-pass appropriations and debt ceiling bills. Democrats counter that this is what’s routinely happening in the Senate now, so why not take the gamble on forcing through a hugely controversial rules change.

Yet not all Democrats are happy about any move to change Senate rules, especially in the middle of a session, thinking it would make the Senate more like the House, where pure partisanship always dominates.

“The way in which the nuclear option operates would be to break the rules to change the rules,” said Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), chairman of the Armed Services Committee. Levin helped negotiate a compromise with Republicans at the beginning of the 113th Congress that appeared to defuse calls — at least temporarily — from Democrats to employ the nuclear option.

“There is a way in the rules to change the rules and we ought to follow that path,” Levin added. “If we don’t, I think it’s conceivable, there will be even more gridlock here than there is now.”

Levin insisted that the bipartisan deal that he hashed out with Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) in January to alter the way filibusters unfold has had an impact on how the Senate operates, despite repeated complaints about GOP obstructionism from his own party. The Senate has passed a variety of major bipartisan bills this year, namely immigration legislation.

“It had a salutary effect because it’s available and there have been some bipartisan actions, we’ve gotten cloture on some things,” Levin said. “I do think that agreement helped to improve matters.”

Others senators have called for requiring a “talking filibuster” — in which members must be actively speaking on the floor in order to block a bill or nomination — as a way to limit anonymous “holds” on nominations or bills short of using the nuclear option.